Ever seen that movie The Help? Well, kinda spun off a little from that movie but I think giving your babe a mantra is a good idea ❤️
Here is ours…
“You are smart just as you are beautiful, inside and out.
You are brave and courageous so dream big.
you are loved and will one day meet true love
You were born with a purpose and will one day find it.
You are kind and worthy of kindness.
Love each day + dream sweet dreams.
The world is big and you are small but you are important.”
Today I will ask my husband of 8 years to be my best friend…again.
You see, we were friends first. We met in high school, my senior year and stayed friends. That friendship turned into two kids, a dog, 5 moves and a decade later, but what happened to that friendship?
Life happened, stress, financial burdens, health issues, drug addiction, postpartum depression, deployment after deployment.
Life happened.
A couple years ago we were hanging on by the thinnest thread, not sure what the fuck we were doing. The word ‘divorce’ would come up almost daily, and not in a spiteful way- more so in a “would it make more sense for our happiness” kinda way.
And if you’re married, that’s a really sad and hard point to come to.
I remember when my parents got to that point and I saw it happen over a period of time. They did less together, ate meals alone, and life happened…they grew apart and my mom searched for what she wasn’t getting in the home and found comfort in her best friend, who she has now been married to for 10 years.
He is 12 years her junior- and “that” part always got me…what was is about their relationship that keeps them together?…oh yea…they are friends…
I’m a firm believer that things that happen in life are lessons. Just like stories in the Bible, your life tells a story just the same. And for me, I took my parents divorce as a lesson to apply to my own marriage.
So what does that mean? It means that my husband and I have been in a friend-fight for a few years now and we are seeking a solution.
So today, my husband and I are leaving the kids with Yaya and heading into San Francisco for the day to reconnect. Today is dedicated on rebuilding that friendship we once had. That friendship we know is still there and will always be there, so long as we desire it.
Today I will ask my husband to be my best friend again. To allow me to talk without thinking of the bills, or our crazy work schedules. To connect on a deeper level other than in the bedroom (because were honestly doin’ great in that department). To feel the freedom to chat for hours, or sit in silence together. To feel that bond aligned with our interests, like music and art, and not focus on the bonds my postpartum depression has destroyed. To just feel and be, instead of numbing my anxiety.
Today I will work up the courage and energy to recognize what’s always been there…underneath the loads of dirty laundry and dishes in the sink, sits two humans that once decided “let’s do life together”.
Marriage is hard work.
I’ll say it again…Marriage is hard WORK…You just don’t wake up and are glowing in-love. You wake up to a human in bed, or sometimes on the couch- and you make the choice to do life together, day after day. Those days don’t always look the same, and that’s ok.
The important thing is that you feel the same ❤️
And baby, I fucking love you ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I could have changed the contrast to smooth my skin. I could have reduced the shadows to brighten my dark circles. I could have adjusted the color to hide the redness from crying.
+Click here to see the original post+
But this is who I am and where I am.
This is a reminder to myself. I am not my circumstances, but I think there’s a special, sacred place for remembering the hard things that refine us and remind us where our strength comes from.
Depression tries to crush. Physical pain knocks the air from my lungs. Financial pressure suffocates. Isolation and loneliness descend like a heavy rolling fog.
Everyone’s version of hard looks different. Being honest about your hard doesn’t diminish mine – and likewise mine does not diminish yours.
To the single mothers and military moms, I bow to you. I was only at this thing for three days and it nearly broke me.
To my fellow moms with chronic illness, I see you.
To the mental illness warriors, I’m linking arms with you – some days to help you stand and others to hold myself up.
To the mothers bringing their sweet babies to chemo, my heart breaks for you. I am believing with you for healing.
To the moms with unspoken pain and hidden burdens, I hope you know that you are not alone. You are stronger than you think.
Hard is hard, friends. Honor the hard that you’re in.
The saying ‘it could always be worse’ is damaging and demeaning. Just because our world has seemingly bottomless pain does not mean that yours is not valid.
I see you in it.
Hard is hard and today you and I are conquering ours breath by breath.
Love you, mamas.
Written by Lily Fryer
Ever need a #vacationfromvacation ?? That is totally me right now and my body is paying for it.
You see, I suffer from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME)- also known to the world as #chronicfatiguesyndrome
The outside looks amazing- but the inside of me is hating everything about life.
Yes, I can keep up with the pace of life with lots of coffee and some meds, but the next day, I will pay. And I will pay hard.
My nerves inside my muscles will throb. My muscles themselves will feel like they just ran a marathon, when all I did was visit family and friends.
Why is this happening to me? How long? It’s neurological, and something that has no cure, not even much research- yet cancer, diabetes and heart disease combined can’t come close to how many already suffer with #ME.
It started when I was a kid and my parents would tell me the pain in my legs were #growingpains …it wasn’t.
We look okay on the outside, but our minds are mythical creatures in the sense that something ‘then’ can effect the ‘now’ by a simple memory or even a scent.
My type of fatigue is a domino- it starts from a thought and trickles down until I’m 7 hours into my work shift and then bam- that fatigue hits me like a train I cannot dodge.
Then I’m down.
I might not rest in the way ‘rest’ might look..because yea I’m still cleaning the house, doing my #momlife stuff but my brain is somewhere else.
Fatigue begins in your head, and if I take care of my mind first, the domino won’t be so bad. But if I’m not kind to my inner self, you’ll see the outer deteriorate.
And that’s what you see here… On our trip home a lot of friends, family + even strangers made it a point to let me know- I need to #gainweight … I know…and I’m working on it daily.
When I’m not kind to my mind, this is what happens to my body. It drops to 98lbs of Ange and functions at full capacity.
Thank you for your concern, but know that
Telling someone they are #tooskinny is just as fucked up as telling someone they are #toofat
Everyone has their own story and this one is mine.
On another note, my mind will be fine because my heart is fulfilled- that trip was what I needed. Your stories were what I came for ?
Have you ever avoided something that meant so much to you?
I’ve known my grandpa was sent to a nursing home and I just didn’t have it in me to visit.
It ate me up and I haven’t felt myself until I saw this happen today.
You see, my daughter has a little bit of stranger danger and she went right to Papa like she had known him all along ?
So, why was I avoiding this? I think that’s obvious… Nursing homes are fucking scary + I’ve never had a good memory flourish from one.
In my eyes, people go to nursing homes to die and the fact that I can’t care for him as I did my grandmother, eats me up inside.
I dodged this moment for some time now and today those anxiety’s were set to rest.
It was a really short visit but a long ass way we came for those few precious hugs & kisses
I don’t force my kids to have a relationship with family that doesn’t make an effort to be in the picture, but this- this is ‘the picture’. The picture I will cherish, the warmth that will stem from the story we will one day show + tell of her Papa
Living the #militarylife has its upsides but being away from family is definitely a downer.
For now, he remembers me and that makes me content…until next time papa ?
As my new Instagram friend @canuck5619 said in a thoughtful comment, “the mantle of spirit is passed” and I feel like I can breathe.
#mentalhealth #momlife #militarywife #deploymentsucks
#grandparents #grandpa #papa #nursinghome
Homecoming is one of those things that tugs at my heart no matter who it happens to and since we had a homecoming this week I wanted to make sure to share some thoughts with you guys. ?
Homecoming can can be someone returning from deployment, another that was incarcerated for sometime, a foster child entering their new home or someone who flew to another country to live with a stranger for a year long backpacking trip.
Homecoming doesn’t only happen for military families, it happens to every type of family.
I’ve witnessed homecomings from friends who have gone away to ‘find themselves’ and then return home to tell us about it. In that same group- I’ve read updates from friends and family on social media who share their journey of foster parenting with us one day at a time. I’ve also met a few that have been incarcerated to then come home to their families and try to reconnect in the same dimension.
Homecoming has depth, it has emotion, it evokes feeling and can even tug on your heart strings. Homecoming makes us human. We all want to ‘be home’. Don’t we? So why are millions of families having to say “hello again” every year?
My take is the obvious, we all are working toward a better life. Some are in one obvious form over the other but when you take a step back and look at ‘life’, we all are in search of “home”.
I live in the “The Bay” as we call it, in an San Francisco suburb that happens to be in a rare corner of the Bay Area that has no homeless population, Dublin (my best secret). Keep in mind…”The Bay” is a melting pot of rich meets poor at the same coffee shop. There is no wall, there is no hate, just poor humans on the curb of the wealthy in their overpriced tiny apartments.
Just to back up a few months back, our living situation was a little different…
You see, we lived on a man-made trash island called “Alameda” right in the armpit of Downtown Oakland and a short ferry ride or drive across the San Francisco Bay. We lived there for a total of 9 months, but I can tell you I already knew in that first month, I didn’t want to live there. (If you’ve never been, I’d suggest getting an Uber and doing an east-bay tour)
It opened my eyes is what it did. I saw homeless drug addicts posted on corners day after day after day. People who I understood made a “choice” to leave home and live on the street, away from family. Away from mom and dad.
It stirred anger inside me I couldn’t express to my husband as I would drop him off at the airport and say our “see you later’s”. I was angry because here he was, putting his freedom in his pocket as this stranger was trying to make a dig into his.
The point isn’t that the man was asking for money or even homeless, what got my blood boiling is that it was by his choice and it got me thinking “what the fuck happened to them??”” Like for real guys….what is happening?
After lots of thought and a few drinks thrown at me by the homeless at a Starbucks I worked at in the heart of Downtown Oakland, it gave me the courage to grow some balls and define what I wanted “life” to look like for my family. I was not happy.
I wrote my husband an the email telling him I was “done” with Alameda and that I put us on the list to be released from housing into the economy. I was so fed up, I was focused on finding a solution. We moved on a quiet army base 30 minutes south in what I like to refer to as the military communities best kept secret, Camp Parks Army Reserve in Dublin, California.
This drastic change trickled down the family (in the best way possible) and we have grown to fall in love with the Bay Area, however, I’m human and I know that those people are still standing their on that corner holding those signs, praying for that window to roll down.
So what makes me any different that them? I know I moved, but what about them…What can i take from this and teach my children?
At this point, I have lost track of how many times I have said “hello again” to my husband. I think not counting has become a coping mechanism I created as to not obsess over the weeks and days in between deployments.
It doesn’t matter how little or long he is gone, it never gets easier.
As I write this, I can see the perspective that I am being a complete hypocrite. On one hand, I’m holding up my own cardboard sign that says “help, doesn’t stay put for more than 3ish years but would love to buy a home”.
And then I see the beauty of the world we live in- you see… perspective is backed by knowledge. Perspective is not something you wake up with or can subscribe to, it is earned. It’s earned through long stories and uncomfortable conversations and can move fucking mountains.
I live the military life by choice because its what works for me and my family right now. What interests me are the reasons why everyone else is living their life to lead them toward “goodbyes” and “hello agains”. What is it that keeps them going and for the few that can, HOW do they make it work?
For that answer I reached out to my friends on Instagram and asked around to find out how these women are mentally coping and reconnecting after deployments.
Again, I know not everyone is military, but I can assure you that learning what they go through can bring you perspective from corners of the earth you’d never understand otherwise.
Through some research I came across this article that breaks down the 7-stages of homecoming. I figured I would sum them up for you guys and see how we can make the human connection between story and perspective.
While I don’t agree 100% with the findings in the article, I did pull what I DID agree with and summarized my experience.
If you’d like to read the full article you can check that out here.
Here’s what I’ve got…
Now lets take a closer look into these.
From the moment we find out the deployment date, the anxiety and depression hits like a tidal wave and there is no dodging that one unless you enter that part of your mind that is ready to go with the flow. Because really, that’s the only way you’d survive a tidal wave.
The best advice I can give for this one is given by my instagram friend @datbombmom whom I met at a previous duty station and is also living the “boat life” right now.
In a message I put out to my friends, she responded “I think there’s definitely a honeymoon stage and then some rough waves can follow that until routine comes back.” That hit it dead on for me, the rough waves- they always hit no matter how you brace yourself.
“A few years ago when I accepted this, it’s made homecomings much easier!” she shared, and she’s totally right. Acceptance is step one no matter which way you look at it. If someone is going to jail, being moved to a foster home, about to take a solo-flight to a strange country, everyone is scared and you need to accept it.
The detachment part is hard for me because we both do it. You can see it when I’m doing the dishes and I can see it when he’s folding the laundry. We are both not looking forward to “this” and that’s where the beauty lies, in the “both” part.
When I originally did my research for this piece, this step was one I totally related with. I am definitely guilty of both. The stress of being alone is overwhelming and the easiest thing to do is shut down, so I do. Then the domino effect happens where crying is as common as sneezing and no one runs to see if you’re okay because they know…you’re not, but they must allow you to live with this on your own terms.
For me, I don’t like to talk about my husband being gone, about to leave, now, future, ever. I don’t like to talk about it. We know it’s coming and he gets on that boat and he leaves.
While he’s gone however, I’m still human, I’m still me, and time and time again I notice that the emotional pain I am trying to shy away on the inside slowly creeps its way outside. It turns my face bitchy, it gives me an attitude, it hurts.
I go months without what I call a “love hug”, other than the hugs I get from my kids and my mother, who lives with me. The love hug is powerful and the moment you get it, you feel reenergized and yourself again.
This is when the recovery part begins…
When my husband is deployed, I have come to learn that the only way I can mentally be “okay” with the situation we have put ourselves in is as if I act like he’s an Angel.
Your brows might have scrunched up after reading that, wondering, wtf is she talking about..
Yea an angel…I’m not a religious person, but I am a hyper-spiritual person. And “angel” is just the name I’ve chosen for my spirits, in-part from my name being, Angela. Anyway- I continue to live my life as if my husband is right there over my shoulder. He can’t talk to me, but I can talk to him.
I can blame him when I drop the bowl of spaghetti at dinner time when the kids are extra hungry, I can blame him when I forget the baby’s diaper bag in the car…you get the idea…
The point is that I’m “not alone” and any moment that happens, my husband is not missing out because he is there in spirit. At least for me…
Life keeps going, the sun continues to rise and we get up time and time again and mark off one less day from that count down, running to that love hug.
Life is as normal as we make it.
Then you get “the coming home” call.
Oh how I fucking hate that phone call.
Now your eyebrows have risen high to your forehead and your’e confused, “why aren’t you excited???”
Well, the house is a disaster, I’ve been lying the entire deployment about my emotional stability and that huge tidal wave I mentioned in the beginning….yea, it’s making its way back out to the ocean and if I don’t get my shit together, it’s taking me back out there with it.
This is when I dig my planner out from under the pile of mail on the kitchen table and start counting down how many days I have to make it look like I’m not an absolute mess without him. A list gets made of every corner of the house that needs cleaning and another list for Costco and the grocery store to make sure he has all the things he is used to having when he’s home.
Any phone call is filled with butterflies and relief that we can finally end these “see you soon” conversations.
The minute that boat hits the dock its pure adrenaline and the end goal is that Love Hug that will send electricity through my body and shock me back to this life I have anxiously been anticipating.
I always get questions like “is it weird at first”(the reintegration part)… it’s not. You anticipate that and once you receive that love hug, any doubt or awkwardness disintegrates because there’s no room for that.
I mean, just look at their faces, they are filled with love.
This is more of a side note, but I included “negotiation” into step five because I feel like every time they return from deployment you both renegotiate what it means to be a family and what that partnership entails because when we said those “I do’s”, we never included “deployment” in that- and our way of making sure we are both on the path we have chosen and not landed on is reliant on those renegotiation conversations.
One thing I can tell you, he never comes back and says “I don’t want to come home”.
And that brings me back to the homeless sleeping on the corner that I will later pass on my drive through Downtown Oakland who don’t want to be home.
It makes me wonder, maybe they need a love-hug from someone who has totally written them off, and how awful and destructive that must feel. I couldn’t imagine standing on the dock waiting for my husband and not receiving that love hug.
That would break me, in fact, that could break anyone.
In an article I found through some Google research about the emotional effect homecomings can have on humanity, I found a part that spoke of empathy, something this world really lacks these days.
“They don’t need sympathy,” Lyles says. “They both need empathy; they need to understand where the other one is coming from.” psychologist Dr. Terry Lyles, who specializes in stress management explains.
If you’ve ever heard of that expression, “to each their own”, it would make more sense to use it in this context. Each person has their own individual way they cope with stress, anxiety and the depressions life can suppress into your heart. But there has to be an underlying connection between what makes a person want to or not want to return home.
Is it something an understanding love hug could fix? Or is this beyond our control because we have no control?
I will always wonder “why” the homeless population I see on a daily basis leave home and I’m sure one day my journey will lead me to some type of conclusion.
But for now, I will soak in as many love hugs as I can get and fill my soul with what feels good because my soul is who truly knows me.
The next time you see someone you love, give them a hug.
If you’d like to see the recap of our homecoming you can see it on IGTV here.
Perspective is not something you wake up with or can subscribe to, it is earned through long stories and uncomfortable conversations and can move fucking mountains.
Box of Knots
RESOURCES USED
Its time for you to come home and I’m not sure if my anxiety stems from fear or pure excitement.
I know, I know, that probably makes me sound a bit crazy, but I have to be honest. The idea of you being home has been my paradise place in my head but the closer it gets, the more my anxiety boils my blood and consumes me to a point where my to-do list is getting checked off out of pure angst and anxiety.
Have I mentioned anxiety? lol
I wanted you to know it’s not a fear of you personally, it’s a fear of who I have become in this short time you have been gone.
It’s been about a month since I hit the “okay he needs to come home” threshold and every single day has been a struggle in some form or another.
Our last conversations have been filled with a hairline crack of “don’t get on the bad side” mixed with a dash of shame and blame on my part. Let me explain…
You said “every time I call you are so overwhelmed, I look forward to hearing your voice and you end up crying”.
Yes baby, this is fucking hard.
I think it’s been about a month since you said that, maybe two- who knows. But it stung a bit. I felt like I wasn’t aloud to feel every emotion that was spewing from my ears.
If I recall correctly, I think I hung up on you, sent a text to tell you I love and miss you and wished you well on your night out in either El Salvador or Costa Rica.
I know it was just a port call but I was fucking pissed.
I wasted that port call being mad at you on the inside and ‘okay’ on the outside.
Maybe 5 years ago I would have turned off my phone and waited till you returned to speak for the first time but we’ve been at that place for a while now where we can coexist without anger or disrespect.
We both know what we mean to each other is what I’m trying to say I guess and with the clock ticking down till the end of your port call points out the last seconds I need to hear your voice.
So the next morning, I answered your call. You were hung over and I was jealous. Not jealous you were hung over, but jealous of where you were because I dreamt about it all night, just to wake up with baby fingers gouging my eyeball and the realization that I was here and you were there.
We talked on the phone, we talked on Skype, attempted to use FaceTime but technology….
We talked. Not about what happened but about our plans, our future, our babies, about how much we fucking missed each other.
It’s not always about ‘what happened’…it’s about what will happen next and I am so grateful to have you in my life to remind me of that.
This deployment I spent a lot of time working on passion projects I haven’t even had the chance to share with you and I guess I’m scared because there’s that part of me that thinks, ‘what if he isn’t on board with my passions?’ ‘What if…’ and down the rabbit hole of self doubt I go.
I haven’t shared my master plan with you yet (shit, I don’t think I’ve really shared it with anyone) but just know that you are coming home to that wife you always remind me I once was.
And now that I have written about it, I’m finding that the ‘fear’ I started with is simply excitement, and I am.
I’m really excited.
Soon you will be home and the real life will begin that makes and breaks me every year. Our ‘bad season’ of marriage that strikes yearly is approaching and I want to make sure we are going to blow through it like it’s not even there.
You my love, have been my passion project all along, and I’m looking forward to this adventure we’ve always dreamed of making together.
I truly can’t wait ❤️
I’ll see you soon!
Love,
The Wife
Everyone has their own method to their madness and I honestly have been insta-story-stalking Yvette for some time now not only because we grew up together but because I’m like…damn! That’s a mom boss and how do I do ‘that’?!?!?
So I reached out to her…because I’m doing that exposure therapy thing where you put yourself in uncomfortable situations so that you can learn to…(we’ll save that for another day)..
Not only was she up for talking about her ‘planning style’ but she was down for a LIVE chat on Instagram (woot woot) and I couldn’t turn that down.
So who is she? What does she do? Why am I even spending time writing this right now..?
I’ll be going down to southern Cali mid-October for an exclusive interview with Yvette and her fiancé Jessica so I’ll save all the details for then. But for now…I can tell you she is awesome. She is a mother, partner, leader, CrossFit coach and all around positive person.
It’s hard to not like positive people, they’re so contagious!
For fun, I asked that she send me a screen shot of what her daily-task list looks like so we could get an idea for how full her days might be on any given day and let me just tell you, with that much on her agenda- she definitely need’s all the calendars to keep track.
She also shared a photo of her dry-erase board that helps keep the entire family on the same page.
So there you have it! The method to her madness. A little bit of practical mixed with a dash of iPhone tech and she’s managing her day to day without forgetting about all that is important to her.
I’m sure there are a million ways to plan out your daily, weekly and monthly agendas and these are all practical and to the point…now if we could all just be half as organized I think we’ll be onto something.
I myself also use these same methods but instead of logging my daily’s in my notes app, I use what’s called a ‘bullet journal’, and I don’t ever think I’d be able to go back to a regular planner again.
I probably change this around about once a month but here is a photo of our kitchen calendar/homework center that works for us.
If you’re interested in seeing how I use a bullet journal to stay organized please let me know through instagram and feedback in my daily story posts. I love hearing from you guys 🙂
Thank you all that tuned into our LIVE chat on instagram and a huge THANK YOU to Yvette for joining me and sharing your tips with my knots 🙂
The world is bigger than your duck-face selfies and in the bigger picture of life, that image will mean absolutely nothing when your grandkids look back at your photo-albums and see nothing but “outfit of the day” photos with no real substance behind your intent to share that moment on a deeper level.
“wow- granny really loved the duck face.” (you know that’s not how you want to be remembered)
Today this homeschool mama sent her first born off to 1st grade.
He cried from the minute he woke up to the moment I walked out of his classroom.
I literally had to tell myself “don’t look back” because I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk away seeing him so unsure and scared.
Now, some moms are probably rolling their eyes- “every kid goes to school”
Sorry, not sorry- he’s not a regular kid and “that” parenting style doesn’t work for our fam.
Sylas is afraid of everything we all are afraid of, and I empathize with him, especially at 6 years young
People are mean. Their kids are ignorant, and the sky is blue…
He CHOSE this pink shirt in target yesterday and told me he wanted to skip his hair cut…so we did.
The fact that I had to give him “the talk” about being teased for his beautiful hair and sense of style is the reason we did homeschool in the first place but I am tossing this ‘issue’ into the air and seeing which way it blows..homeschool or public?
It is up to PARENTS to teach their children about ignorance, what a bully can be, and how it can change a person.
Don’t you go changing baby ? mommy loves you exactly the way you are.
Say hello to @syguytv my friends.
BTW, My son is fucking awesome ?
P.S. anyone else have to bribe their kids on their first day? I had to bribe mine with Fortnite VBUCKS ?
#firstdayofschool #firstgrade #1stdayofschool #letschangetheworld #youtubekids #kidsofig #gamer #momlife #mominainteasy #fbombmom #homeschool #unschooling #gameover #fortnite #letterboard